of Thomas Blackborne Thoroton Hildyard Esq. It is a handsome modern edifice, erected on the site of the ancient mansion. It owes many of its present beauties to the late Col. Hildyard." Hildyard family Col. Thomas Blackborne Thoroton Hildyard (1752–1814), was MP for . As a colonel in the Coldstream Guards, Thoroton Hildyard served with British forces in the American War of Independence. He was also a longstanding friend and advisor to John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland, to whom he was related. His grandson Thomas Blackborne Thoroton Hildyard (1821–1888), son of Thomas Blackborne Hildyard (1788–1830), also lived at Flintham Hall and was educated at Eton and Oxford. In 1846 Hildyard entered political life as the Conservative Member of Parliament for the southern division of Nottinghamshire. It was a toughly contested election. Hildyard was supported, according to the University of Nottingham, by the 4th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme "in spite of the fact that Newcastle's son, the Earl of Lincoln, was his opponent. Lincoln attacked Hildyard's youth and inexperience, but the 'young squire' still defeated him by a majority of almost 700. Hildyard held South Nottinghamshire from 1846 until 1852. He was re-elected in 1866. He then continued to represent the South Nottinghamshire constituency until his retirement in 1885." The name of the Hildyard family of Flintham was initially Thoroton. Col. Hildyard, father of MP Hildyard, was formerly called Thomas Blackborne Thoroton. The second son of Thomas Hildyard, formerly Thomas Thoroton, took holy orders and became a rector. In 1816 the Rev. Levett Thoroton married in London the daughter of Sir Alexander Cray Grant, 8th Baronet of Dalvey, Elgin, Scotland, and MP. Rev. Levett Thoroton later became a rector in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where his family owned land, but changed his name to Hildyard in 1815 on marrying a Hildyard heiress, the niece of Sir Robert d'Arcy Hildyard, 4th and last Baronet, who died without issue leaving his estate to his niece. Col. Thoroton Hildyard was descended from Mary (Levett) Blackborne, who was the daughter of Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London and the widow of merchant Abraham Blackborne, and her second husband Robert Thoroton of Screveton Hall, Nottinghamshire. (Robert Thoroton and his wife Mary became parties to a contentious lawsuit with the Blackborne family heirs — Thoroton vs. Blackborne — over an enormous estate left by William Hewer, longtime friend of diarist and Secretary of the Admiralty